Living the Message Fed. 4

And know. The word know often has sexual connotations in biblical writings. Adam knew Eve. Joseph did not know Mary. These are not, as so many suppose, timid euphemisms; they are bold metaphors. The best knowledge, the knowledge that is thorough and personal, is not information. It is shared intimacy--a knowing and being known that becomes a creative act. It is analogous to sexual relationship in which two persons are vulnerable and open to each other, the consequence of which is the creation of new life. Unamuno, a Spanish philosopher, elaborates: "'To know' means in effect to engender, all all vital knowledge in this sense presupposes a penetration, a fusion of the innermost being of the man who knows and of the thing know" [The Agony of Christians]. The knowing results in a new being that is different from and more than either partner. No child is a replica of either parent; no child is a mere amalgamation of parents. There are characteristics of both, but the new life is unpredictable, full of surprises, a life of it's own.

This sexual knowing that results in newly created life is the everyday experience that is used to show what happens when we pray: withdrawal from commotion, shutting the door against the outside world, insistence on leisurely privacy. This is not an antisocial act. It is not a selfish indulgence. It is no shirking of public responsibility. On the contrary, it is fulfilling of public responsibility, a contribution to the wholeness of civilization. It is, precisely, creative: You cannot make love in traffic. For all his marvelous creativity, Michelangelo never painted or drew or sculpted anything that compares with any newborn infant. For all his wide-ranging Renaissance inventiveness, Leonard da Vinci never faintly approximated what any peasant couple brought forth by simply going to bed together. People who pray give themselves to the creative process at this same elemental, world-enriching, self-transcending place of surprise and pleasure.

I gave up all the inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power...

PHLIPPIANS 3:8